Film Forum

U.S./U.K., 1985
Directed by Joyce Chopra
Written by Tom Cole
Based on the short story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates
Starring Laura Dern, Treat Williams
Approx. 92 min.

“Laura Dern plays a fifteen-year-old California high-school student named Connie, who, during summer vacation, pushes the limits of parental constraints while flirtatiously seeking the attention of older boys. Connie’s conflicts with her mother (Mary Kay Place) and her older sister (Elizabeth Berridge) make life outside the household all the more alluring. Then a thirtysomething man (Treat Williams) notices Connie in town, spies on her, and preys on her with a terrifying blend of suavity and menace. Dern’s fiercely thoughtful stillness, matched by the tremulous empathy of Chopra’s direction, brings out Connie’s ardent yet wary curiosity and frozen panic alike. Chopra films Connie’s rambles with friends in a shopping mall and at the movies with an apprehensive hush as the danger of male aggression grows nearer.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker

Reviews

“A remarkably fine film about the muddle of emotions that separates the child from the adult”
– Vincent Canby, The New York Times